"Barry Longyear - Dark Corners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

“I don’t clean this wing, Nut. Let’s see if we can make you crap, too.” He begins bending back my right
ring finger.

The world gets soft and black.




All of my fingers are broken. Both of my hands are in casts. I am clean and the sheets are clean, my arms
still in restraints.

“If you ask me to do it,” says the Misty Man, “I will take care of those who cause you pain. We have to
do it together. You must want and I will do. If you do not want, I cannot do. I’ll kill Hicks. Your doctor.
Anyone.”

“Everyone isn’t bad,” I tell him. “Even Hicks and the doctor. They aren’t evil. The doctor is washed up,
frustrated, hurt, old, disappointed with his life. He can’t see the pain in others because his own pain fills
his sight. Hicks is the same. The world is populated with men and women who are just like them. I’m like
them. I couldn’t kill them for that.”

Smug laughter comes from the Misty Man’s image. “You tried to kill the doctor for that.”

“No.” I turn my face away from the dark. “I was wrong. I didn’t think. I just reacted. The doctor doesn’t
deserve to die for what he thinks.”

“What he thinks of you?”

“Especially for what he thinks of me.”

“What then for the doctor? I think you know it’s time to do something. They’ve replaced the caretaker
you killed for me with someone who is very gentle and kind. In a like manner, I could help you.”

I think. There has to be something between doing nothing and doing murder. Another option or two.
After all, I’m not some kind of psycho killer. “The doctor needs different work,” I tell the Misty Man.
“Something away from here.”

For a long time the Misty Man is silent. “At least let me kill Hicks,” asks the creature.

Something, either compassion or vengeance, touched my heart. “Hicks is sick,” I told the Misty Man.
“He needs help. Hicks needs to be in here.”

The image of the Misty Man fills with blue lights and a few yellow glows. It fades and I am again alone. I
let the anger, the pain, the rage fill me until I scream the universe out of existence.
The new doctor closes the folder and tosses it on his desk. He has his diplomas and certificates hanging
on the wall as though he wants to be there.

He wears black-rimmed glasses and works with his tie down and his sleeves rolled up. Danny says he’s
a good man. I agree with him. The Misty Man did very well. I wonder what happened to the old doctor.